Warning to America - Minimum Wage Nation?

Several years ago, when the economy was chugging along A OK, and people were working, the knuckleheads in our Capitol decided to pass some 900 new laws. Among them were taxes on income, and a number of sin taxes- increases in taxes on alcohol, cigars and tobacco products, surcharges for buying a "commercial vehicle for non-commercial use" ( the anti-Hummer law) and people bitched about it but absorbed it, or they quit drinking and smoking and bought smaller cars...which they did.

Then the economy tanked, and California's dwindling tax income shrivelled up as the jobs left- Private jobs left because the government had created such a hostile environment for business that staying here was excessively expensive, when compared to the economy as a whole.

Now I ask ya? If you were running a company and people stopped buying your stuff, you'd cut back, right? But the government didn't, they ADDED more stuff to pay for, more "for the children" in education and health, more for a lot of stupid stuff...all worthy, but for crying out loud, sometimes worthy things have to go...

I mean when MY wages got cut, plans for a new car were tossed, i cut off my cell phone, and changed my cable tv to the basic package...I cut back so i can still pay for my house, groceries etc...its called a budget.

Well here now for the umpteenth year California has gone into a new fiscal year without a budget. Only THIS is special, because the Governator has ordered the Controller to pay state workers  federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Oh, except for the Highway Patrol and the Forestry , the operating engineers and some others in unions that accepted his latest contract offer (all the state's union contracts expired in 2007 or 2008, and some tentative agreements were reached, but never finalized, and there has been negotiations underway since then).

Just to explain to non-Californians, the Controller is a elected official, and so he technically doesn't work for the Governor, he works for the People of California. So here is where this gets weireder...today he said he ain't going to be able to cut the wages, because it would violate state and federal labor laws, and subject the State to fines and penalties...its a mess.

The impact of course is to shift the blame off growing government to the workers, but the real culprits are the buffoons under the dome, who refuse to align the budget to the reality of lower income...everyone has a special interest to represent, and now they want to hold workers responsible...its BS.  So they struggle to shed $19 in debt, and get us moving again.

Lesson for America

This should be a lesson for Obama, because the runaway spending cant be paid for if people aren't working, making something...Even GE Chairman (and Obamanot) gets that:

From the Washington Times..

At that Ex-Im conference (Ex-Im is a government agency dedicated to subsidizing U.S. exports), Immelt declared “Germany is the model” economically because they believe in “government and business working as a pack.” Immelt also showed some China envy, I reported at the time:

And Immelt flashed an envious smile when he said, “China pays all the bills.” “What you see in China,” Immelt added, “is an incredible unanimity of purpose from top to bottom.

Are we destine to be a minimum wage nation?